‘Greatness written all over’ James Paxton

Iain MacIntyre, Vancouver Sun COLUMNIST08.17.2014

Ladner’s James Paxton is 6-0 as a major league starter with the Seattle Mariners and has an earned run average of 1.88. He is only the fourth pitcher in the past 100 years to start his career 6-0 with an ERA that low.Christian Petersen
/ Getty Images

Ladner’s James Paxton is 6-0 as a major league starter with the Seattle Mariners and has an earned run average of 1.88. He is only the fourth pitcher in the past 100 years to start his career 6-0 with an ERA that low.Greg Fiume
/ Getty Images

Ladner’s James Paxton is 6-0 as a major league starter with the Seattle Mariners and has an earned run average of 1.88. He is only the fourth pitcher in the past 100 years to start his career 6-0 with an ERA that low.Harry How
/ Getty Images

Ladner’s James Paxton is 6-0 as a major league starter with the Seattle Mariners and has an earned run average of 1.88. He is only the fourth pitcher in the past 100 years to start his career 6-0 with an ERA that low.Harry How
/ Getty Images

James Paxton was never perfect in baseball until he reached the major leagues.

The pitcher from Ladner was amazed to make the North Delta Blue Jays of the B.C. Premier League at age 15. At the University of Kentucky, Paxton was awed by how much harder other players threw.

For years, he struggled with inconsistent velocity and control. And in 2009, unable to reach a contract agreement with the Toronto Blue Jays as a first-round draft pick, he was ruled ineligible to return to college baseball and left Kentucky for an Independent League team in Grand Prairie, Texas.

Nothing has come easy for Paxton.

“Not so far,” he said last week during a quiet moment in the Seattle Mariners’ clubhouse.

But he’s making it look easy now.

On Friday night, the six-foot-four left-hander allowed five hits and one run in six innings as the surging Mariners beat the Detroit Tigers 7-2, winning for the ninth time in 10 games.

For all the bends, hills and one cliff along his road less travelled, Paxton is 6-0 as a major league starter and has an earned run average of 1.88. He is only the fourth pitcher in the past 100 years to start his career 6-0 with an ERA that low.

Paxton is 25 years old. He may soon have the baseball world at his spiked feet.

“I think this kid has got greatness written all over him,” Seattle manager Lloyd McClendon said. “He just needs to stay healthy.”

Paxton’s win Friday was his first since returning to the roster Aug. 2 after missing nearly four months with an injury that began as a strained lat muscle behind his left shoulder. He is 3-0 this season, matching the record he went last September after being called up by the Mariners from the minors.

In nine starts and 52 2/3 innings over two seasons, Paxton has allowed 11 earned runs, struck out 45 batters against 13 walks, and held opponents to a .189 batting average.

“He can get it to 99 (miles an hour) and it’s effortless,” McClendon said in a pre-game chat with reporters during the Mariners’ series sweep last week against visiting Toronto. “He’s got that … over-the-top (release) where you just don’t see it. It’s a different angle and it’s very difficult on hitters.

“I think this kid could be the glue to our rotation. He can stretch those winning streaks out. If you look at our rotation throughout the year, the guy in the five hole has not been very successful. It’s been patchwork. This guy can patch it and it doesn’t come loose.”

Keep in mind the pitching rotation for which McClendon sees Paxton as a bonding agent includes Felix Hernandez, who makes $25 million US a season and is favoured to win his second Cy Young Award as the American League’s best pitcher.

Told about his manager’s “greatness” comment, Paxton smiled with what appeared to be embarrassment, then said: “Well, it’s a nice compliment.”

Upon reflection, he added: “I’m not really focused on what people’s expectations are for me. My expectations for myself are probably higher than everyone else’s. But the biggest thing for me is staying in the now. I can’t control what happens in the future, so I’m just focusing on what I’m doing today.”

Including the last off-season and his recent injury, which was prolonged by soreness in his throwing arm during rehab, Paxton’s brief major league career has had two extended interruptions. Yet he has looked just as strong at the end of them as he did before.

“I think that his journey has made him very mentally tough,” Ted Paxton, a career counsellor, said of his son. “James sees whatever happens as the journey he needs to take. One of his greatest strengths is his ability to accept and move through adversity. He is just not allowing anything to deter him.”

Ted often caught for James when his boy wanted to practise in Leslie Park, behind their home in Ladner. As James grew, his fastball got harder and his curveball sharper, and his dad more scarred.

“Oh boy, I’ve got all sorts of shin ulcers and lost a couple of toenails,” Ted said. “It was brutal. I thought: Gee, if I want to live through this, I better put on some gear. My brother is an ump, so he lent me his steel-toed boots and shin pads and mask and what have you, and then I went out and caught for James. It was scary, but thrilling. I loved it.”

Their last game of catch was last Christmas when James came home from Seattle, where he lives with his girlfriend, and wanted to throw. It was raining, so the Paxtons moved under cover at a nearby elementary school.

Asked if he always planned to be a major league pitcher, James said: “Not even close. I was 10 or 12 years old and didn’t even know there was a Premier Baseball League in B.C. I was just playing with all my buddies in Ladner, having a good time, and I found out coaches from the North Delta Blue Jays were watching me. I thought that was a huge deal at time when I made that team, like: ‘Holy smokes, I’m playing for the North Delta Blue Jays.’ Man, that was tough.”

Others saw Paxton’s potential.

North Delta general manager Larry Waddell, who coached Paxton, remembers a kid in peewee baseball whose curveball confounded not only opposing batters but his team’s catcher.

“Our difficulty was finding kids who could catch him because he threw the ball so hard and with so much movement,” Waddell said. “He would throw two fastballs past batters for an 0-2 count and, typically, throw a big breaking curveball to get them out. But there were kids who figured this out and would just swing wildly and start running on the third pitch on the expectation the catcher wouldn’t be able to catch the ball. There were innings James struck out four or five kids.”

Despite erratic control, Paxton’s power at Kentucky earned the attention of pro scouts and the Toronto Blue Jays made him a first-round draft pick in 2009.

Represented by heavy-hitting agent Scott Boras, Paxton and the Blue Jays couldn’t agree on a contract before that summer’s signing deadline and James decided he’d return to Kentucky for his senior year, then re-enter the 2010 draft.

But when Blue Jays president Paul Beeston talked publicly about the difficulty in dealing with Boras, the NCAA investigated Paxton because college athletes are allowed to have only family advisers, but cannot be directly represented by an agent. The issue, like so many NCAA regulations, is written in shades of grey.

After failed lawsuits and without much support from Kentucky officials, Paxton chose to leave college in the spring of 2010 and get in whatever baseball he could before the June draft.

The Mariners selected Paxton in the fourth round. Nearly a year later, Boras, according to the Seattle Times, made up for the Toronto fiasco by negotiating a $942,000 US signing bonus for his client — more than what the Blue Jays had offered him as a first-rounder.

“I’m not going to lie — it was a very tough time for him,” Ted Paxton said. “But it almost made him more determined. It has been quite a circuitous journey. There have been stressful moments. He has just stayed focused with what he wanted to get done. He kept focused on that dream.”

James Paxton wasn’t keen to retell all the details about losing his senior season at Kentucky, but said: “I think the things that I’ve experienced have definitely made me tougher mentally, being able to handle things — just realizing all I can do is handle what’s in front of me.”

Paxton got better in Seattle’s farm system. He strengthened his lower body and improved his mechanics, which gave him more control over his pitches. He throws a couple of different fastballs, has an improving change-up and still possesses that wicked curve.

When James was little, he idolized dominant Mariner left-hander Randy Johnson. The family — Ted and Barbara Paxton also have a younger son, Thomas — make periodic trips to Seattle to see the Mariners play at Safeco Field.

James said the Mariners always felt like his “home team” and Ted said he and Barbara feel lucky that their son plays near enough for them to drive to games.

“It’s been so cool,” James said. “And now to be part of (a wild card playoff race) and contributing, it’s so fun. There’s going to be some very exciting baseball games this next month and a half. I’m really looking forward to it. The goal is to stay healthy now and just pitch.”

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